AUSTIN, Texas — Outside a nondescript building a mile or so north of the University of Texas campus, self-described poster addicts stood in the rain Saturday, anxious to get a fix of their exotic vice.

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“We’re poster nerds,” said Sam Cardozo, a collector who lives in Austin and stood at the front of the line with a handful of out-of-town friends, waiting to get into opening night at The Mondo Gallery.

Cardozo, who said he owns between 500 and 600 posters, queued up around noon Friday with his fellow paper-and-ink fiends, some of whom had driven from Denver after receiving a cryptic announcement about some sort of Mondo event. Dozens of others braved the unnaturally soggy spring weather, some having traveled from as far as Southern California.

Chase Tatum and three friends made the 16-hour drive from Colorado, only to stand for 30 more hours in front of the new gallery, which was filled with who knew what. “We’re here to buy,” Tatum said.

They would soon find out that the Mondo Gallery’s walls were covered with 38 pieces of imaginative sci-fi artwork (see some of them, along with photos of the Mondo team, in the gallery above). Some pieces were rare originals, like a painting by movie poster legend Drew Struzan or Jason Edmiston’s riveting acrylic-on-wood The Hand of Ming, while others were screen-printed posters from Mondo’s vaults, created by artists like Olly Moss and Tyler Stout.

The new digs will serve as a base of operations for Mondo, an expanding enterprise that has fueled a revival of poster art in recent years by hiring outstanding artists to put their own spin on sci-fi and other genre films.

Mondo sprang from humble beginnings, getting started after Alamo founder Tim League bought a bunch of vintage T-shirt iron-ons a decade or so ago to sell as Mondo Tees. Original artwork eventually became the focus, and Mondo’s star rose after the company cut a licensing deal with Lucasfilm to create a series of Star Wars posters that generated nerdgasms among sci-fi and poster fans. Mondo’s posters were added to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences archives last year alongside official studio posters, becoming the first non-Hollywood art to be included.

Perhaps hard-core poster collectors felt a disturbance in the Force as the collectible art boutique, which is operated by the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, moved its headquarters from the theater chain’s popular location on South Lamar. Mondo’s T-shirt sales benefited from a steady stream of moviegoers at the old location, but Mondo creative director Justin Ishmael said the art boutique had outgrown the space at the Alamo. Plus, the high-end art that is Mondo’s future didn’t necessarily benefit from the foot traffic.

“If you’re taking your kids to The Lorax, you don’t care about a $50 poster.”

“People thought we were crazy for moving out of the lobby of the Alamo,” Ishmael said during a press preview before the gallery’s grand opening, timed to land during the annual South by Southwest Film festival. “But if you’re taking your kids to The Lorax, you don’t care about a $50 poster.”

Ishmael figures Austin’s strong film community will continue to support the operation, with T-shirt sales moving mostly to the internet. In the new location, already a destination for poster geeks, Ishmael plans to put up about nine themed exhibits a year while pursuing deals with movie studios so Mondo can continue to crank out sought-after alternative posters for current theatrical releases.

Mondo’s limited-edition prints, which generally go for between $40 and $75, almost always sell out within minutes when the sales go online, as announced at random times on Mondo’s Twitter feed. The frenzied buying opportunities give poster junkies a bit of an adrenaline buzz.

“Have you ever tried a Mondo drop?” asked Cory Bank, another member of the Denver contingent at the gallery opening. “It’s addictive.”

What could be worse than simply zoning out and missing the sale of a special poster for a movie you love? How about trying, and failing, to complete an online purchase, despite a rapid series of desperate mouse clicks — or getting “drymounted,” as they call it in the online poster forums. You end up caught in a sort of wannabe buyer’s limbo when the computer screen goes blank, stuck somewhere between PayPal and shipping, these veteran shoppers said.

“We call it the white screen of death,” said Colorado poster collector Mason Stoneking. “If you get the white screen of death, you’re done,”

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